Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the American Boy
by LucyToo
Summary: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson travel to America at the request of DI Lestrade, whose nephew Sebastian appears to be in danger.


_Author's Note: I guess I'm back! _

_This is a story that should never even be attempted: a Glee/Sherlock crossover. I am, despite common sense, attempting to write a very serious story here. The pairings, though not the point of the story at all, will be Sebofsky and asexual-life-partners Johnlock. They are, of course, the BBC Sherlock and John, and if you're not familiar with them then you have my sympathy. _

_This chapter as an opener is really more my attempt to see if I can convincingly write Sherlock and John than any plot forwarder, though it does serve to get the guys out to America, so. I'm new to Sherlock, and rusty from not writing for a few months, so give me a couple of chapters to get into the swing of things. _

_I don't typically call out for feedback, but since this is an experiment for me I'd like to know what people think. _

_Now! Story. _

* * *

It wasn't often that John Watson missed the war front. Yes he liked excitement, yes he got a bit grumpy when things around him stayed too normal. But he wasn't mad with it. He didn't crave war. Someone more profound than him once said that the only people who want to fight a war are people who have never seen war before.

Still, at least at wartime he knew what to expect. The violence and terror were horrid, of course, but it was as predictable as chaos could be. The enemy was always the same, and their methods of attack rarely varied.

It was that relative predictability that John missed. Especially on days when he had to come home to a flat containing the most dangerous animal in existence: a bored, caseless Sherlock Holmes.

It was two _days_ since their last case was solved, and Sherlock didn't need more than a few unoccupied hours to become a wild creature. John hated to admit that he stalled his arrival home from the clinic. He wasn't proud of his stop at Tesco to get an unneeded box of tea. He wasn't proud of the way he lurked on the pavement of Baker Street, checking his phone once, and then again. He certainly wasn't proud of considering the idea that if he dragged Mrs. Hudson up to 221B with him, Sherlock might be a little less insane in her presence.

Silly thought, anyway. Sherlock didn't care who his audience was at any given time.

It wasn't that he was a coward, John reflected as he made his reluctant way upstairs listening attentively for any clue what would be waiting for him. John Watson was many things, but never a coward. He wasn't afraid of Sherlock. He never had been, which baffled many people who knew them both. It baffled John more often than not.

He simply liked to know which Sherlock he would be dealing with at any given time. He liked to prepare, to brace himself in the right ways. He wanted to know what he was in for, be it danger or insults or body parts casually strewn about the flat.

Once he was on the stairs there was no use stalling. Sherlock would know he was there, and like any other wild animal it was dangerous to let Sherlock pick up on hesitation or a lack of resolve. So he simply pushed through the door, face schooled casually even as his gaze darted from wall to wall to wall in search of the long, thin reed of insanity that he lived with.

No sign, no noise. Odd.

John shut the door behind him and cleared his throat. "Sherlock?" He moved to the kitchen to set down his needless groceries, looking around warily as he went.

The air was thick in the place, which was a bad sign. It wasn't the biggest flat, and the way Sherlock's things cluttered it up the space seemed even smaller than it was. They rarely opened windows; there were always experiments (Sherlock's) or paperwork (John's) to protect from the elements. When left undisturbed for a time the air tended to thicken up inside the flat, to hang heavy as if the place had been unlived-in for months instead of merely hours.

John himself, he hardly stirred the air with his presence. But Sherlock...one restless stride through the flat would slice through the stillness like a blade and have the place feeling back to normal instantly.

This heaviness, which Sherlock would have dismissed as John's imagination, meant that either Sherlock was gone and had been for hours, or that he'd gone still.

John frowned and moved back through the cluttered front room. His laptop was safe where he'd left it. Sherlock's coat hung over the back of his chair. Everything seemed unnervingly normal.

Still, though. Quiet. And just like the war front, too quiet could be a very bad sign.

"Sherlock?" he called again. Reaching the door to Sherlock's small bedroom he rapped with his knuckles. "I'm back," he offered, a gift ready-made for Sherlock's derisive hatred of people stating the painfully obvious.

When there was no answer he cracked open the door and peered in, if only to make sure that Sherlock hadn't turned to self-experimentation and was somehow trapped or incapacitated.

Nothing. The bed was messy but empty, the bedroom as still as the rest of the flat.

Well then. Sherlock didn't leave without that coat often, but it was within the realm of possibilities. John let out a small sigh, rolling his neck a bit as he left Sherlock's room to climb the stairs for his own. Perhaps he'd been called on a case after all.

Perhaps Mycroft had kidnapped him. That was probably overdue.

John patted his pocket to make sure he had his phone on him. If Sherlock was on the hunt then either he'd be gone hours without a word or he would text John with some entirely mad-sounding random bit of words and send John running into the night to help him.

John sincerely hoped it would be the latter.

He stepped into his own small bedroom and sighed, reaching for the light and planning which of his unfinished books he'd attempt to catch up on.

"Turkey."

"Christ!" John managed to flip the light on even as he jumped a foot in the air, which wasn't unimpressive. "What in the _hell._"

Sherlock was on his bed. Fully dressed, shoed feet hanging off the edge, hands steepled at his chest as he went on pondering the ceiling.

John patted his chest to soothe the now-racing heartbeat, glaring at the bed even as he tugged off his jumper and went to find one a little less heavy now that he was home. "Exactly what is it that you're doing in here?"

"You didn't answer me," Sherlock answered, voice low and bored.

"The last I checked, 'turkey' wasn't a question in need of an answer. So unless that was your extremely half-hearted attempt at an insult..."

Sherlock's head tilted towards John, and for a moment his eyes were almost amused. "I'm proposing something here."

"I'm too young for marriage," John muttered, grabbing one of his more worn old jumpers and sliding it on. "Damn the cultural conventions."

"An experiment, John," Sherlock responded, with what he no doubt thought of as infinite patience. He didn't move from his long, black-clad stretch along John's bed. "I need to study you, and you need to eat turkey."

John turned to the bed, arms folding across his chest, eyebrows raising. "Turkey."

"And possibly cheese. Parmesan. Maybe cheddar. For about a week, yes."

"What, and nothing else? Turkey and cheddar."

Sherlock sighed as he sat up, swinging his feet to the floor and sitting straight-spined as ever. "You'll need to go back to the market. You really should have called."

"How did you know I went..." Useless question, and John shook his head. Right, they still needed a case, and badly, apparently. "No," he said simply, heading for the door and back down the stairs.

After a moment Sherlock's quick steps came down after him. "I'm serious, John."

"That's not an experiment, it's a diet. And you can have my biscuits and tea when you pry them from my cold, dead-"

"One week. Even you can manage for seven days. Of course after that I'll need you to avoid a long list of foods and take a completely harmless supplement for another week."

"I said no, Sherlock." John headed for his laptop, torn between amusement and annoyance as Sherlock followed on near-silent feet. "The legwork's been done on that particular experiment. It's called Atkins, I believe. I'll pick you up an issue of Glamour next time I'm out, I'm sure there's something in there about it."

"I'm not talking about a bloody diet, John, I need to study the results of consumption of natural sources of tryptophan versus processed supplement-"

"And _why _do you need to study that?"

"Because I'm _bored!_"

John nodded, pushing the laptop screen up. "There it is."

And like a button had been pushed inside of him, Sherlock instantly started pacing the room with the same frantic energy that John had expected to run into when he first got home.

"Let me check the website," John offered, smiling despite himself as he typed in his password.

Turkey. Honestly.

"There's nothing there," Sherlock muttered, petulant. "Nothing of interest. There never is. This entire bloody city is _boring_. Boring murders, boring robberies, dull blasted kidnappings."

John glanced over as he waited for the website to load up. He watched Sherlock, his smile softening a bit. Wild creature, Sherlock Holmes, and John was locked in the cage with him, and for some bizarre reason he loved every second of it. All that frantic, nervous energy. All that intense focus that made Sherlock so desperate when there was nothing to aim it at.

That utterly amazing brain and its constant need for stimulation.

People responded so negatively to Sherlock. They called him freak, psychopath. They despised that he saw a different world than they did. But John...

John was different. Lucky, at least so he considered himself. He had seen quickly that Sherlock's way of seeing the world was hardly a choice. He saw what he saw. He chose to shine a spotlight on the things that he noticed, yes, and that got him into trouble.

But John wasn't scared of him or his brain or his way of seeing the world, because Sherlock didn't invent things. He didn't create the crimes that he accused people of. What Sherlock did, simply, was to speak the truth. Harshly, yes, but phrasing aside he only saw the world as it was. As observant as he was, he was still just an observer. People made their own trouble; Sherlock only noticed it.

John was aware, painfully at times, that Sherlock took no delight in being the way he was. His frustrations were too profound, his annoyance at the rest of the world too sincere. Yes he was smug, yes he could be cruel, but for him dealing with normal people was like a scientist trying to explain the internet to cavemen. Average people missed such broad, basic ideas, they couldn't begin to understand the details as he saw them.

Sherlock was a remarkably frustrated man at heart. When it manifested as anger or condescension or wild attempts to drastically impact his flatmate's diet, John saw it for what it was and was able to wave it away without being stung by it. When he did get angry it flared up and died out quickly.

He rather liked the idea of it, of his humble place beside Sherlock. Helping, yes, at times, but more importantly...simply being there. Understanding, accompanying. As antisocial as Sherlock was, he needed John badly. And because John knew that, John could put up with a great deal.

He turned back to the laptop, and frowned at the unchanged message board of the website. Nothing.

"I knew it."

John glanced back at Sherlock with a sigh, but before he could start trying to think up alternatives to keep Sherlock's brain from stagnating, his phone buzzed. He fished it from the pocket of his slacks, noting that Sherlock's pace slowed down noticeably as he called up the new text.

John read the words, then read them again. "Mm."

Sherlock's steps slowed all the more. "Yes?"

"It's Mycroft."

The pace sped back up instantly. "Of course it is. If the bloody crown needs me for something, tell him I'm busy. No, tell him that I'm off my head from boredom but I'm refusing anyway."

"Actually...you might want to read this."

Sherlock glanced over, but kept moving. He gestured a hand towards John, impatient.

John read it out dutifully. "'_Don't tell me he's actually considering the trip to America. -MH_' Something you're not telling me, Sherlock?"

Sherlock blinked. He steered his pace to bring him close enough to grab the phone from John's hand. He scanned the message quickly as he moved past. "America," he repeated absently. "Is he talking about someone else?"

"You're the only 'he' Mycroft and I have any reason to discuss," John said with a shrug, sitting back and watching Sherlock stride the room, disrupting all of that stale, heavy air so easily. "Maybe he misunderstood something from his network of spies."

Sherlock shook his head, tossing the phone back towards John. "Not Mycroft. More likely he simply heard something before we did." His brow creased in interest, and his pace took him to the couch where he sat heavily. "You can ask him if you like, but if something's afoot than it will reach me sooner than-"

His phone rang, tinny and thin when it reached John's ears.

They shared a moment's gaze, and John chuckled and set the phone down as Sherlock reached for his own phone.

"Lestrade," he noted to John when he looked at the screen before he accepted the call. "Sherlock Holmes," he answered with his normal cool formality.

John watched as every instant brought a new look to that face. Curiosity replaced by uncertainty replaced by surprise replaced by interest, all in the blink of an eye.

"We'll be there shortly," Sherlock said simply, lowering the phone and gazing out at the middle-distance for a moment.

"Well?"

He stirred and quirked a smile over at John. "It seems Lestrade has both a crime scene and a favour to ask."

John tried not to smile at the relief behind Sherlock's eyes. "Let me put my warm jumper back on."

* * *

Along with chaos and threats to his life, dead bodies were another thing that John's new life shared with his wartime memories. But dead bodies, for him, were easy things.

He wasn't blasse about them, of course. He wasn't Sherlock: when he saw a corpse he saw a life wasted, not a series of details and clues. It was hard at times to remove himself enough to do his job, particularly when the body was very young, or very old. Particularly when he knew that the death had to hurt, that it wasn't an instant's blacking out of lights. When he could still see the lines of pain and terror in their faces.

But, for the most part, those things didn't stop him. John had attended the bodies of friends back in Afghanistan. He had buried the man who was training under him to assume his role once his own tour of duty ended. He had buried a man he was extremely close to since his very first deployment.

John Watson was a soldier; one inevitable trait that all soldiers shared was that they knew what it meant to bury someone. And once a soldier buried a friend, the death of a stranger could only hurt so much.

Sherlock looked at a corpse as a collection of hints. Evidence strewn over an inconvenient heap of organic matter. Sociopathic, at least according to Sherlock himself and John was in no position to deny the label, but when John had to struggle with a particularly bad death he found Sherlock's attitude a comfort. At least, he did now that he was used to it.

But that night, in a relatively clean but dark alley behind a cafe's dumpster, the scene was fairly easy for him to handle. A man with the beginnings of salt and pepper in his hair, wearing a suit and tie like thousands of other Londoners doing their business day to day. A single gunshot wound in the forehead.

He had lived enough of a life that John didn't have to feel grief, and had died quickly enough that John didn't need to be guilty.

There was a smaller presence around the alley than normal – Lestrade was by a couple of squad cars looking drawn and occupied, and there was no Sally Donovan to stop Sherlock from ignoring Lestrade altogether and simply pushing under the police tape and moving down the alley.

No Anderson behind that dumpster, just a young, slightly familiar figure with gloves and camera, tending to his business effeciently.

Sherlock stopped at the edge of the dumpster, scouring the scene. John had to stop himself from staring – there was something particularly hypnotic about Sherlock when he was in the midst of investigating. The way his gaze flickered over everything and missed absolutely nothing. The focus that shined like a tangible beam of light from his eyes to the world around him.

He was so damned quick. Of all the things that amazed John about Sherlock, that was the one that continued to be as impressive as it had been on day one. He was so bloody fast, glancing at some inane detail and immediately drawing a thousand conclusions.

"Mr. Holmes," the young forensic officer all but gasped when he noticed he had company. He straightened and lowered his camera, staring at Sherlock with a hundred times more curiosity than he regarded the dead man.

Sherlock barely glanced at him, holding out a hand. "Gloves."

The officer rushed to obey, digging into the pocket of his uniform and thrusting out a wad of disposable gloves. Sherlock plucked two from the wad with those long, precise fingers of his.

"Five minutes," he said as he slid them on one after the other.

"Yes, sir. Of course."

John watched with amusement as the younger man scurried down the alley. "Refreshing, that," he commented idly.

Sherlock, already crouched beside the body, looked back at John's words. The slightest smile tugged at one side of his mouth. "We should talk Anderson into early retirement."

John chuckled. "Who else would he listen to if not the two of us?" he answered dryly. "No, you get far too much enjoyment out of antagonizing him. A world where Sherlock Holmes is allowed to go his own way without opposition...how dull."

Sherlock sent him an amused smile before turning back to the corpse.

John grinned, pleased with himself as he always was when he earned a smile from Sherlock. He moved around the corpse, studying the dead man from a distance. The manner of death seemed obvious enough. Small caliber bullet confirmed by the neat entry wound, lack of blood under the man's head confirmed no exit wound, slight black powder spotting his temple verified close range.

The man didn't seem to have seen it coming. His face was uncreased, even seemed to be wearing a small smile. John might even think it was a suicide if the entry was more to the side of the head. Close to dead center was an awkward angle for self-infliction.

Sherlock, of course, took nothing as obvious. He leaned over the man, grabbed his hands one after the other and studied fingers and palms. He leaned to one side, lifted the man's foot and studied the shoes. Glanced beyond him to the cement of the alley, then leaned the other way and hovered over the man's shoulder with his pocket magnifying glass in hand. He took the man's chin in his hand, turning his head, examining the wound for barely a second.

Rising smoothly to his feet, Sherlock huffed an annoyed sigh. "This is not our case."

John blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I mean..." Sherlock glared down the alleyway towards the flashing lights of police cars. "This is ridiculous. That bloody teenaged coroner probably has this solved already. They don't need us for something like this."

"I take it you've got the whole thing wrapped up, then? Two minutes, case closed?"

Sherlock sent him a withering look. "Do you really doubt me?"

John shrugged. Of course he didn't doubt Sherlock. John might suffer in comparison but he was a very intelligent man himself, and he'd seen Sherlock do too many consistently amazing things to ever doubt him.

But turning and leaving meant returning to a quiet flat without a case on the horizon.

"Sherlock?"

They both turned, and John watched Lestrade stride down the alley with the young forensic officer in tow, followed by a couple of uniformed patrol officers. He almost smiled – an audience. If nothing else Sherlock could cheer himself up by amazing a small group of people before retiring back to the boring flat.

Sherlock only scowled. "Why am I here?" he asked when Lestrade was close enough. "You must already have her in custody."

"Who?" the young forensic officer blurted.

John grinned, ducking his head a bit to hide it.

Sherlock snapped back, irritated, "The wife, whoever she is."

"You think his wife killed him?"

"I don't _think_," Sherlock answered, regarding the body with almost disappointed eyes. "I don't _guess, _I don't _assume._ Find the woman. She'll be happy to tell you all about it. I hardly blame her myself: the man was insufferable."

Lestrade seemed unusually annoyed as himself and the group behind him finally reached the body. "Fine, the wife. We'll look into it. I didn't call you here for-"

"Wait...did you know him?" One of the officers cut off Lestrade without seeming to realize it, staring down at the body and Sherlock with wide eyes. Someone who hadn't seen Sherlock in operation yet, though no doubt the halls of Scotland Yard brimmed with stories about him. Sherlock was the closest thing to a creature of fable to exist around London.

Sherlock heaved a long-suffering sigh, his eyes going to John for a moment.

John just nodded, faint and quick, mouth quirking up despite himself. "Go on, then."

Sherlock turned to the body. The moment before he began talking, John noticed Lestrade open his mouth to speak before shutting it in resignation.

He didn't call them out here for this man, John realized. That's what he'd started to say. This case wasn't right for Sherlock, and Lestrade didn't intend him to solve it.

John let it go for the moment, turning back to Sherlock, moving around for a better view of the corpse as Sherlock talked.

"First thing to notice: the man's shoes. Freshly polished, obsessively clean. But the shoes are cheap, like the suit. The seams of the slacks are threading around the ankles. He doesn't care about looking put-together, so why the regular polishing of the shoes? The answer is in the rubbish beside the dumpster."

All eyes went to the dumpster as Sherlock gestured a bored hand towards the ground. "Coffee cup, leftovers from a sandwich shop, a bakery bag. He was out on his lunch break when he was murdered, and we can count four different stops. He doesn't like his job, he delays returning to the office in every way possible. Lunch, then coffee, and a shoe shine to delay him even longer. Look at his wrist – no watch, no lines to indicate he ever wore one. He doesn't keep up with the time. He's chronically late for work, late after lunch, and I'd bet early to leave. He wants to get fired, he's hoping for it. And why?"

Sherlock paused, drawing a breath. There was, of course, no answer behind him. John looked from the man's corpse to Sherlock's face as he went on.

"Look at his hands. Thick callous on the middle finger of his right hand – he frequently wrote with a pen, far more often than any job would require. He was a writer. But wait – his fingers are stained with touches of black. Ink. A fountain pen, perhaps ribbon from an old-fashioned typewriter. He doesn't clean the stains because he's proud of them – he wants to be asked about them. He isn't a writer, not this man. He is an _author. _He fancies himself a genius just waiting to be discovered, and resents the career that keeps his rent paid. In his coat pocket, the outline of a thin notebook. Moleskin, no doubt."

Sherlock sniffed contemptuously. "His suit was new months ago, he wears it often. The money is wearing thin. He seeks no advancement at work, he acts out. The household budget is suffering. He doesn't care, but look at his wedding ring: expensive, outside of his budget. Well-cleaned, but not because this man values appearance. He does it to appease the wife who does care about money and the appearance of wealth. In fact, she cares about those things more than she cares about her own husband. She knows he will never succeed as a writer, she sees the future: he wants nothing more than to earn unemployment benefits, and she fears nothing so much."

John couldn't help the look of wonder from coming over him. He watched Sherlock dissect men's lives constantly, but there was still something about it that impressed. The way Sherlock saw an ink stain and filled in details about a man's ambitions, habits, attitudes. It was amazing.

For a man who despised people so much, Sherlock could read into their hearts and minds shockingly well at times.

"Okay, but even if he was a tosser you have no idea his wife actually killed him."

Sherlock turned a glare on the unfamiliar officer as he spoke. "It astounds me that you people are the ones we trust our safety to. Of course I know that she killed him. Look at the ground – he wasn't dragged but about ten feet from where he fell. Because," he said fast, glowering as the officer opened his mouth to question, "he dropped his bloody lunch where he fell, and you can trace the drag marks in the dust between there and where he now lies. Meaning that he came into this alley willingly to have a chat. Look at his face – this wasn't a stressful meeting. This was a rather pleasant surprise in the idiot's mind. Minute red flecks in his suit under his arms – she chipped fresh nail polish as she dragged him. His hair. She straightened it, brushed it over the wound. Not to hide the injury – the man's obviously dead – but out of sentimentality. No..._vanity_, so that even in death her husband will be seen as attractive."

Sherlock turned to Lestrade, annoyance firmly in place. "Pull her in. She sees herself as the long-suffering victim of his artistic ambitions, she'll admit everything if you show pity for her circumstances."

Lestrade, like John, had been pulled into the saga of the man's life as told by Sherlock Holmes, and his own irritation had eased a bit. He nodded back at the one loud-mouthed officer. "Pick her up, have Witters talk to her. Repeat the story to him first."

The officer glanced back at Sherlock, and at the body beyond him, as if wanting to double-check everything Sherlock saw. But he headed back down the alley a moment later.

Lestrade turned back to Sherlock. "Happy? Now let's find somewhere to talk. You were right – I didn't call you out here for the crime scene."

Sherlock's air of long-suffering annoyance faded back a bit as he exchanged glances with John. He tugged his gloves off and dropped them in the dumpster as Lestrade led the way out of the alley. John glanced back as the forensic officer crouched to take close-up pictures of the man's ink-stained hands, and the other officer huddled in and stared at his shoes and slacks.

John chuckled, but shot Sherlock a look as they followed Lestrade. "One question."

Sherlock sighed, but at least he gave John the courtesy of looking merely bored, not annoyed. "Of course."

"You said that he would never make it as a writer. You're figuring that based on the odds of anyone becoming a successful author, I assume. You can't possibly detect the amount of talent a man might have."

"I should be hurt at your continued habit of underestimating me," Sherlock answered.

"Come on, Sherlock. How?"

"His suit. Head to toe the image of a display that stood for weeks in the Marks and Spencer on this very block. His haircut, straight from a photo in a barber's shop. The man didn't have an ounce of creativity in him."

John laughed. "That is absurd."

Sherlock raised an eyebrow in his direction.

"I'm willing to play along about the wife, the desire to lose his job. But I refuse to accept that a man being a lazy shopper makes him a bad writer."

"Logic rarely lies, John."

John shook his head, more than a little amused. "Do you know what your problem is?"

Sherlock glanced back at him, smile curling up his lip. "According to whom?"

"Your problem is that you insist on applying logic to human behavior. As often as you're right, you still forget that humans are an entirely illogical species."

"And yet I've managed to solve every case I've taken," Sherlock answered dryly.

"No. Sorry, I don't buy it. Not this time. People aren't so cut and dry as you make them out to be. One of these days you're going to make a misstep thanks to one of these leaps of logic. Especially when applying that logic to human behavior, which is, if you'll forgive me for this, one of the few things you remain entirely stupid about."

Sherlock chuckled. Ahead of them Lestrade had stopped at his car, sending a few instructions to the officers remaining on the scene before turning to wait for them to reach him.

"Can I expect a blog post about the case of the poor undiscovered litarary genius slain in an alley, then?"

"Maybe," John answered with a smile.

"Any time now, boys." Lestrade glanced at his watch less than subtlely.

They cut the chatter short as they reached the car. "Well? If you didn't want me to solve your case for you, why call me to a crime scene?"

"Because," Lestrade let out a breath, and from so close John could see the exhaustion in his eyes. "I haven't been able to get away from crime scenes for two days now, and short of asking you round to my house as I sleep this is the only chance I'll have to speak to you."

"Two days worth of crime scenes?" Sherlock snapped out instantly.

Lestrade frowned. "Not your kind of crimes, Sherlock. I've had three different drunken murders after the bloody League Cup this weekend and two hopefully unrelated suicides. No mystery to any of them. It's been enough to put me off football. Almost."

Sherlock nodded, appeased.

"But I've needed to talk to you since Sunday night."

"A favour to ask," Sherlock reminded him, the annoyance in his features fading instantly to mild curiousity.

Lestrade glanced at John and around them, before facing Sherlock again. "A personal favour," he clarified. "Completely unofficial, completely off the record."

John's eyebrows rose.

Lestrade shifted, leaning back against the car, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. "I don't know how busy you are these days, but..." He scratched at his neck, awkward, but blew out a breath and pushed on. "I've got a nephew in trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" John asked instantly. He didn't know very much about Greg Lestrade's family life, since Lestrade didn't volunteer details.

"There was an attempted kidnapping over the weekend. I don't know much about it, but he ended up in hospital. Then yesterday morning some men attempted to force their way into his hospital room, I think to finish the job they botched earlier. Someone's trying to get their hands on him."

"Why?" Sherlock asked, obviously not quite excited by the idea yet.

"My sister's husband. He's an attorney for the state, working some fairly controversial cases. I think they're after Sebastian to get to him."

"Attorney for the state?" John blinked, and suddenly remembered Mycroft's inexplicable text before they left the flat. "Oh god, he lives in America."

Lestrade squinted at him, but nodded. "Ohio," he specified. "Which is why I can't get near the case. If I could take leave, I would, but..." He gestured around at the police cars, and the city beyond them. "Listen, Sherlock. These men went to his school, found him in a crowd of uniformed students, and got him out to the parking lot without a single boy noticing anything. If they hadn't run into a friend of his outside the doors they would have gotten away with him without a single trace of evidence."

"Professionals," Sherlock summarized. "But with two botched attempts under their belts."

"Which means their next attempt will be less careful. More dangerous." Lestrade rubbed at his temple, looking sincerely distraught. "My brother-in-law is an idiot, the kind of man who would treat the kidnapping of his son as a platform to score him press conferences. My sister...much as I love her, I have problems with how she treats her son. He's not close to his parents, and this time around it's affecting their judgment in a dangerous way."

Sherlock glanced at John, eyebrows raised.

John looked back, shrugging faintly. A Lestrade family squabble, interesting as it appeared, hardly seemed like something that ought to take them across the bloody pond. The kidnapping might keep Sherlock occupied, especially if the men truly were professionals. But was that enough?

"Look, I know better than to appeal to your emotions," Lestrade said after a silent moment. "But I'm rather close to my nephew. He lived with us for a time while he was going to school here. He's been in some trouble before, thrown out of a dozen private schools, but for silly reasons. Nothing bad. He's a decent lad, and he's in danger."

Sherlock didn't seem swayed. "You said that this would be entirely unofficial."

Lestrade nodded. "The police in the States have no interest in consulting with Scotland Yard in any way, and I can't pull any kind of rank from here. You would be on your own out there. The police don't have to so much as humour you, and I can put in a good word for you but that's about all."

"America," Sherlock said thoughtfully, his eyes starting to take on a familiar gleam.

John read that expression easily. The sad saga of the troubled nephew was barely a consideration for Sherlock. But the idea of going to a strange place without his reputation preceding him, without police assistance, surrounded by mad Americans...that was far more appealing. That was a challenge.

Sherlock turned to John, reminding him of the other potentially interesting aspect of the case. "Mycroft's text."

"'He's not really considering going to America, is he?'" John paraphrased.

"Mycroft wouldn't bother sending a message like that unless he had personal interest in my schedule for the immediate future. Normally his interest in keeping me here would put me on the plane without a thought."

"Mmm. One reason why I admire your entirely mature relationship with your brother," John threw in.

Sherlock smirked. "Then again, he knows full well that his text would send me off to America in a second, which means he's trying to get rid of me. Some upcoming plot that he doesn't want me near, no doubt."

"Or he assumes that you would read that far into his intentions, and he is actually hoping to keep you here. Some favour he'll be needing you for, perhaps. Which means if you really want to spite him we ought to go." John blinked as he realized what he was saying. "My god, two grown men."

Sherlock's smile grew but he turned back to Lestrade. "What could you get me regarding the kidnapping attempts?"

"Nothing," Lestrade admitted with a frown.

"What about this attorney father's caseload? What can we get?"

"I can call him and see what he'd send, but he's been closed-mouthed so far. Assume nothing."

"So you'd send me to America without a clue of what I might be walking into," Sherlock clarified with a sharp look at Lestrade. "Without even a contact who would speak to us."

John watched Lestrade sag back against the car, his eyes dimming a bit. John bit back a smile and waited.

Sure enough, a second later Sherlock rubbed his hands together and nodded, mind made up. "Sounds like fun."

* * *

_tbc_


End file.
